The holiday cat picture has arrived, which means a laptop-free posting break for me, until January 2 at least. Yay! I hope anyone reading this gets some laptop-free holiday time in too. Till next year, thanks for all the clicks, comments and complaints of '09, and all best for ringing in 2010.
Image from Ning
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Posting Notice: Holiday Spirits
Top 10 of 2009 up at NOW
The year's top 10 art events, which I contributed to along with Fran Schechter and David Jager, went up at NOW today. Here's how it shakes down:
1 Leona Drive Project, October 22 to 31
2 Candice Breitz @ Power Plant, September 19 to November 29
3 Cedric Bomford @ Red Bull 381 Projects, September 10 to October 10
4 Funkaesthetics @ Justina M. Barnicke, February 12 to March 23
5 Liz Magor @ Doris McCarthy Gallery, September 15 to October 25
6 Design For The Other 90% @ OCAD Professional Gallery, October 4, 2008, to January 25
7 Noise Ghost @ Justina M. Barnicke, May 28 to August 23
8 Maura Doyle @ Paul Petro Contemporary Art, April 24 to May 23
9 Its Time @ Drake Hotel, April 20 to June 1
10 Geoffrey Farmer @ Nuit Blanche
For reasoning, or to take issue via comments, check out the article.
Image of the Leona Drive Project from NOW
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Out Today: Interview with Kalle Kataila in National Post

As I noted last week, I loved seeing art/activist duo the Yes Men take on global climate inaction in Copenhagen. Interestingly, Finnish artist Kalle Kataila wants viewers to consider similar issues, albeit in a much more subtle and personal way. This didn't come across to me at first glance—just the images themselves were breathtaking—but it is elaborated in my interview with him in today's National Post. Here's an excerpt:
Q Your project is called Landscapes and Contemplations. While landscape is easy to photograph, contemplation is less so. How did you approach that?
A Before this project, I was doing photographs of people in meditation. And then I thought that this story could be told through landscape, through an open kind of space. In the landscape, there's often a lot of different stories going on as well. In my work from Dubai, there's a lot of wondering about what has happened with cities, not just thoughts about the grandeur of nature. But overall there is some kind of harmony in the images. And I hope that prompts people to think about our lives, as well as the relationship of our lives to the land.
Some of Kataila's photographs are on view at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre to January 3. And there's more pics below as well as on Kataila's website.



Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Enjoyed: Alexander Irving at QueenSpecific & Art Advent Calendar
Around this time of year, so close to the holidays, I must admit I start to look for works that really sum the past 12 months up. Alexander Irving's Janus – For Anne Carson seems to hit the spot. Seen above, it reads, "every exit is an entrance," a message particularly suited to New Year's stuff and nonsense. It's on at the small windowspace QueenSpecific to January 19.
Also, I think Murray Whyte already mentioned this, but I'll reiterate: the Dundas West windowspace Fine & Dandy has a nice little art advent calendar that's been revealing itself all month, with one artist work hung per day. Looks like it wraps up on the 25th, so go take a peek soon if you can.
Image from QueenSpecific
Monday, December 21, 2009
Love: Kid-Oriented Exhibition Labels @ Harbourfront Centre
One thing I really love seeing are the kid-oriented exhibition labels at Harbourfront Centre. Honestly, I consider them grownup-oriented as well. Which would you rather read, this:
or this:
I'd say the former, at least as an entry point. The kid labels are also placed a little lower (so grownups have to stoop to read them, dang it!). Incidentally, if you want to find out more about Mike Bayne's work, which is also worth a shout-out, go here.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Shows for the Holidays: Blockbuster ifs and buts
My biweekly gallery column for the National Post focuses today on a few shows to see over the holidays--mainly last-chance-to-view blockbusters at some of our major museums. I enjoyed these shows, a few worthy "if, buts" notwithstanding. Here's an excerpt:
Vanity Fair Portraits at the Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Many museums were created to house ancient artifacts. So given the multiple title closures and mass layoffs at magazine megacorp Conde Nast this year, one wonders if this museum show focused on Vanity Fair -- one of its centrepiece titles -- merely seals the company's status as analog-media dinosaur. Indeed, brand booster-ism throughout the show, both in text and image, produces warranted skepticism of the exhibition's artistic merit. Nevertheless, there's a lot of lovely photographs here, ones that are all the more appealing for the famed-yet-familiar faces they detail. Films of glamour-photogs Edward Steichen and Annie Leibovitz at work are also worthwhile, showing it takes a village to raise a Young Hollywood issue. Ultimately, what resounds is the way that different photographers make celebrities their own. Nan Goldin's commissioned photograph of a young Rob Lowe, for instance, is almost indistinguishable from Goldin's famed art pics of lithe, party-friendly pals, while Helmut Newton's severe black-and-whites hone in on fetishes of sex and power no matter who his sitter is. To Jan. 3. (Closed Dec. 25.)
Image of the Vanity Fair show at the ROM from Seems Artless
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thank God it's Linkday

Reader, I think that my last couple of posts reveal the following truth: that my brain has become a bit fried from exposure to art and other things, and it's a good time to just do some linking and shout-outs to cool things found 'round the interwebs. So here we go—some good stuff to see and watch and listen to if you ain't already holiday-nogged out of your mind:
Art Fag City's Year-End Fundraiser
Blogger extraordinaire Paddy Johnson has commenced her second annual year-end fundraiser to support her web-crit outpost Art Fag City. She's looking to raise $8,000 by January 1 to keep the blog going. All donations get a tax receipt, and also get a Travis Hallenbeck ringtone. The top donor will get the Saul Chernick print pictured above. Genius, and a great way to support art/art crit in a time of shrinking column-inches for same.
"The irrelevance of museums as social institutions is a matter of record"
I came across this video via prolific museum-ops blogger Nina K Simon. In this five-minute video, Robert Janes, editor of Museum Management and Curatorship, calls out the problems he sees in the current museum world—namely, that museums are already irrelevant in the social sphere thanks to an emphasis on marketplace rather than quality exhibitions. I'm not 100% in agreement with his take, but it's a helpful reminder that we in Toronto are not alone in our displeasure/frustration with our museums. I hope we can find ways to change this situation for the better in the year to come.
Don’t Call Him a F*$@ing Starchitect!
This one comes via thoughtful writer Hrag Vartanian's blog. As Vartanian notes,
When London’s Independent newspaper used the “s” term in front of Frank Gehry, the Toronto-born architect went nuts: "I don’t know who invented that fucking word ’starchitect’. In fact a journalist invented it, I think. I am not a ’star-chitect’, I am an ar-chitect…" Yikes, chill dude you are a starchitect, you really are.
Well put. (Image via Curbed)
Canuck Art Best-of Lists Begin!
Yesterday, both Akimblog and Canadian Art released their year-end best-of lists. I work for the latter, but I honestly think it's still worth a read. Torontoites should also peruse David Balzer's year in review piece from this week's Eye and Torontoist's Heroes and Villains lists, in which the Power Plant gets a shout-out. And yes, I will plug Sally & LM's top ten fiesta yet again, which hasn't started publishing yet but is accepting submissions until December 27.
Lead photo taken by me at the Toronto Sculpture Garden